For whatever reason, no one I know seems really to like Byatt (& this is particularly as a novelist - I know a few who have enjoyed a short story or three), but she consistently shocks in her ability to take basically distant prose stylings and what one might call "dry" material (the academy; literary obscenity trials; pottery-making; Victorian poem-hunting; divorce court) & generate a narrative that I'm incapable of putting down. I neglected a great deal of work in order to chug through this one! Sorry students! Sorry dissertation prospectus! I read this before bed, totally exhausted; I read this between paper-grading shifts; I read on the subway & in my office & in several bars. It did take me a bit over two weeks, but only because I would dash through 100 pages and then reluctantly need to put it away for a few days: rinse, wash, repeat, so forth.This is the third in the Frederica Quartet, begun with Virgin in the Garden and Still Life. We follow three central threads in this novel: that of Frederica's tumultuous attempts to evade her abusive marriage in London's swinging 60s; that of the novel-within-the-novel 'Babbletower,' a kind of exploration of a utopian world gone-Marquis de Sade; and the two trials, interconnected in some sense, of Frederica's divorce petition and the obscenity one launched against 'Babbletower' - which, as it turns out, is written by a grotesque drifter Frederica encounters in her all-over-the-place teaching duties. This of course oversimplifies. Several characters from previous books cameo, principally Daniel & some of F's university flames - but she's the real star here, alongside Jude Mason, the author of 'Babbletower.' Byatt's descriptions of his rancidness, his unwashed quality, his self-righteous snobbery & his obsession with Nietzsche are all spot on: somehow he's the most despicable character, physically repugnant to a point where I felt I could smell his odor, even taste it. And yet! She turns the tables much further on, & suddenly, you're rooting for this freakish recluse & actually feel saddened that he's forced to clean himself up for the trial. Frederica seems far more complex here than before, too, as she's placed from the first in a situation one would never have anticipated the Frederica of the previous novels falling into. And yet it doesn't baffle; it merely expands her characterization, enables a recognition (also experienced by figures of the text that know her) of a complexity under-represented before. A situation which is born out of grief's necessity; a moral quandary solved foundationally out of recklessness, which then becomes explored thoughtfully and expansively. In any case, this is perhaps my favorite of the quartet thus far: I've loved Frederica from the start, so I was excited to see her pushed in to new directions, nuanced and empathetic in novel ways. The novel in general explores questions of literary merit, pornography, the impact of media on the individual moral system, the irrationality of desire & the consequences therein, the notion of "mother-love" (and the challenges that can be made to such a totalizing concept), so on and so forth.Ugh. Why am I trying to convince you of its "merit"? I feel as if I'm selling you on it as the lawyers do 'Babbletower' in the novel itself. I suppose if you've started the quartet and are wondering whether or not to continue: do! This one's the most thrilling and compulsively readable one of the three I've completed.I'm sad to hear "Whistling Woman" is supposedly so awful a conclusion to the quartet. Nevertheless, I'm planning to pick it up in the next few weeks.
I was wondering why this book is so long and tedious (it's not without its great moments but yikes, so much ephemera!) and then I read an interview with Byatt saying this was her ode to Proust. I've never read Proust but I hear he harps on tiny details of life. Presumably he also has a lot of narrative dead ends, as Byatt sure does. Here is a non-exhaustive list of random things mentioned that go nowhere:- Lots of build up to meeting the publisher's wife, Melissa, and...she chats at a party and is never heard from again- A lot of time devoted to early drafts of protagonist's book called Laminations, which seems like a ripoff of The Golden Notebook - disappears after too many pages and is never mentioned again- A lot on the Steering Committee that really fizzles out. Why is Alexander the protagonist for a few chapters?- Much hinting about roommate's love life and hidden past but we never find out anything about it-Snail biology and Frederica's brother's love triangle. I like snails as much as the next person but this is totally irrelevant and boring. I didn't feel that the thrush anvils were a great metaphor for anything much (but Byatt sure did). I suppose we're all snails, never knowing when the thrush of fate may swoop down, pick us up and dash us on the rocks? Gag.In a way, all these dead ends are a lot like life - we may speculate about our roommate's baby daddy and never find out and eventually no longer care. However, I expect a little more thematic structure in a novel. Maybe that's very unProustian of me.Besides the structure, I found the depiction of the 1960s a little flat. Byatt lived through them (though as a stay-at-home-mom, not as a writer) so presumably she knows what she's talking about, but the book seemed to lack the immediacy of time and place that The Golden Notebook does so well. Come to think of it, The Golden Notebook is (to me) a perfect example of the Borgian ideal: perfectly encapsulate a time and place without resorting to "local colour." Notebook features no discos, no hippies, nothing typical of its time and place and yet somehow totally captures the life of a Communist woman of letters in the early 60s. Lessing, you're a genius.The other thing I found strange was the discussion about censorship in the context of some authorial censorship. The book centres around the censorship of a book that includes a lot of graphic sex (not all concentual), violence, pedophilia, cruelty among children, etc. However, the excerpts in the book are pretty tame. For example, we see a character get caught trying to escape and see her former lover describe the torture device he built for her, but her torture is not described. I presume Byatt meant to imply that the torture scene is really awful and graphic but she chose not to include it. It's hard to imagine why "And then someone got tortured." would be grounds for censorship, but it's hard to imagine why the author chose to not show the really graphic scenes, which apparently were OK for a 1960s but not 1990s audience. (That said, I have no love for torture porn so...maybe the right decision?)After all that negativity, I do want to say that the main character is really well represented. I'd love to see more not-pretty, arrogant, smart women as literary protagonists. The depiction of spousal violence is really painful to read and comes off incredibly realistic. Should be mandatory reading for people who blame battered wives for "staying." (The protagonist's pretty much outright forgiveness and willingness for her son to spend summers with a violent man do seem dated and unrealistic now, though.)
What do You think about Babel Tower (1996)?
it's horrible to see frederica potter an abuse victim and then to witness the misogyny and unfairness she experiences in the court system. it's unsettling to see her in this frightening, cool, environment, where an indulgent unintelligent man is coddled by his hideous aunts and housekeeper. the book within a book, babbel tower, is classed by the powers that be as obscene, and it is somewhat revolting, although actually conservative in its morals. it makes you wonder how people on here complain about gay sex in the "the line of beauty" and if they have ever read something that is actually disgusting.the court scenes for both this case and the divorce case are remarkably fast-paced for byatt, and compelling for it. daniel's storyline is also stronger than anything he's previously had.
—Lucy
If you picked this up and read it in 1998 when it was first published, it may have had more relevance to you. But by 2009, the themes of 60s events, 60s poor-me feminism, education and the life of intellectuals are so dry and played out, Babel Tower has nothing left to offer. Byatt's Babel Tower gains two stars for the sheer scope of it. Unfortunately, most of the sub-stories, and in particular the defenses of children's education and the tedious court room dramas, were so dry that I skipped thr
—Jesse
Great book, although it's difficult to get started. Very much about the lyrical value of language, which sounds pretentious, but only because it matches the pretension in the book. Frederica, the heroine, is at once likeable and disagreeable, and yet you cheer for her throughout. Within the book, you have two trials--one of Frederica's divorce, the other involving a book called "Babeltower" which is on trial for obscenity. Many references are made to the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial. On top of this, you have Frederica's "Laminations," which is a collection of pertinent and not-so-pertinent quotes, letters, and vignettes that seem to be collected in something of a common place book.One of the reasons that I was drawn to this book in the first place was the beginning, where Byatt introduces the novel in several ways (and as someone who is unfamiliar with the rest of the series, none of them made sense at the time). I didn't really know where she was going, but the prose is excellent, and when I got to Hugh Pink's thoughts on pomegranates, I was hooked.Because of Byatt's ability to write so well, there are parts of the book that are really difficult to get through. For example, the very descriptive domestic violence was hard to read, although I appreciate that the most brutal act of violence is not described in such detail. I don't like to think of myself as a prude, but I was also repulsed by the description of break-through bleeding and her love-making with Paul (or was it John?) Ottakar.I would highly advise this to a) a professor of English, looking for something to analyze; b) a 20-something with academic dreams (me!!!); or c) a retiree with a great deal of patience. Otherwise, the book requires a great deal of time and effort to get through (see: I read the book with a dictionary at my side). That said, I ended up passing this book on to one of my neighbors (he fits into the retiree with a great deal of patience category) and then handed it off to one of my more precocious high school students. Based on her emails, I believe that she is enjoying the book quite a bit, although the domestic violence gave her some trouble.
—Madelynp
